Sea of Shoes

Wearing Kansai Yamamoto

I posted this amazing Kansai Yamamoto skirt I got off eBay a few months back...it is definitely time to show it some love again.

Worn today with Ann Demeulemeester lace-up sandal boots, an American Apparel sweatshirt, my new favorite vintage necklace, and an Antonio Palladino gold octopus ring.

This octopus ring is not mine! Mine is silver, my mom has one in gold. Sometimes we trade. I cannot reiterate enough how much pleasure it gives me to wear my favorite animal on my finger-- it's glistening jointed tentacles come to life with every twitch of my finger.

Can't get enough of these Ann D's!! I know, I know...I'll shut up about them.

Denise gets as excited about Ann Demeulemeester as I do. She was very animated today...she's always trying to get into my pictures.

and now I'm going to share some pictures of David Bowie wearing Kansai Yamamoto...

Here is a very short clip from one of his shows in 1971-very theatrical!

xox Jane

Blogger meet-up!

I've been really excited to meet Lucrecia of Fashion is Poison

 -she was in town for a couple of days so my mom and my sister and I met up to have lunch and do some shopping together at Northpark today.

Lunch at La Duni-delicious Columbian cuisine!

Lucrecia checking out the jewelry at Forever 21!

Sick shorts at UO.

Shoe shopping at Barneys!

Mom and Lucrecia enjoying an Orange Cup!

Love my crappy iPhone photo? Here's what I brought home today-Jil Sander assymetrical wrap platform heels.

Every shoe from this collection was amazing!  Such beautiful organic shapes....kind of primitive and art-deco.

That was so much today Lucrecia, thanks for hanging out!

Dressing up again

So my mom picked up this vintage wrap dress the other day and before it was shipped to it's new home, I wanted to play around with it.

I'm kind of obsessed with the idea of being able to wear a wrap dress both as a coat, and as a dress. What a versatile piece-you could get so much wear out of it.

These shoulders and sleeves are what really kill me. It's always nice to have those pockets, too.

Very smart and sophistacted worn on it's own. Kinda feel like a power lady. But the right amount of decolletage showing keeps it a little bit sexy.

Wear it over cuffed black pants (mine are Y-3) and eccentric brogues and it's a whole new look. Casual but not sloppy.

The silver chain necklace was a recent purchase-it's sooooo beautiful, isn't it? I feel like I don't wear much jewelry but I will definitely be wearing this a lot. Worn with my Alex and Chloe deer horn and an old cross that was lying around one of our jewelry boxes in the garage.

Close up shot of my Yohji Yamamoto silver brogues. 

Heap on a scarf, uncuff the pants, and try some sculptural boots for something perhaps a little more agressive. To me, these boots make anything predatorial!

Everytime I post these Balenciaga Fall 2006 boots, I always get people asking me how I got them-it was a very, very lucky find. I was at Neiman's Last Call outlet and they had just gotten a shipment of shoes in that day. These boots were a season old at that point, but they had been sent to the outlet because one of the boots was missing a harness. I don't even wear the one harness I do have. So I got them for a great deal-lucky, huh? People are absolutely rabid about finding these boots now.

On a sidenote, I am totally obsessed with these Dries van Noten faux-croc pumps. I am stealing them from my mom, so they're a size and half too big for me. But if they go on sale I will get a pair for myself!

That heel is so beautiful and I love the capped toe. Sometimes it's nice to not show toe cleavage.

 

Randomly shot this gorgeous black and white pleated skirt. It'll be up on Atlantis vintage soon.

This skirt is really quite amazing-every individual pleat had to be sewn together. Worn with Dries van Noten black and brown strappy sandals, and a Richard Chai shearling jacket.

Why, oh why did it have to be that I got this faux fur Sasson jacket in April, right before summer started? If it was winter right now, I would wear this crazy jungle-green thing every day. It's crazy, right? Well, only 6 more months until I can wear it.

Gonna sign off now-I am so ridiculously behind on my email, it's horrible. I have email phobia!

XOX Jane

THE CRAZY EIGHTIES DRESSES

I am so into these crazy eighties dresses right now...

lots of volume, dramatic cuts, shoulder pads, and narrow waists...

This black beauty is not mine for keeps-it's for the vintage site. Couldn't resist trying it on before it's sent to a new home. Again, you can email me or my mom if you're interested in it!

My mom and her friend Kelly were thrifting this week and Kelly picked out this incredible dress-thanks Kelly!

I am so in love with-I know I say this about a lot of things, but I really think this might be my favorite dress I own.

It has so much fabric...even though the fabric isn't the nicest quality, it feels very luxe because of the volume. 

The dress doesn't look half as good without this belt, in my opinion. It's the perfect color. I like the leopard print vs. zebra print.

You really need the crazy eighties necklaces with these eighties dresses.

I hope to find some more soon-expect to see some on the vintage site soon maybe!

xo JANE

Richard Avedon for Gianni Versace, Vogue Italia February 1993

Thanks so much to iluvjeisa at The Fashion Spot for scanning these-

the people who share their scans in the Vintage Magazine forum are angels-thank you for helping preserve vintage fashion & providing endless inspiration!

More pictures ahead.

DISCO ON THE MOORLANDS

Ever since my mom bought these vintage pieces home, I've been dying to put them together. I find something  intriguing about the flashy, tacky sequins (I mean tacky in a good way) and the cozy and classic tartan maxi. 

This piece is available for purchase on Atlantis if you're interested! Sorry about the confusion on the jacket last time. If you're interested in the skirt, email me or my mom!

Wow, I've gotten the nicest responses to the news interview-thanks everyone for your kind comments and emails, you're so sweet! I'm camera-shy when it comes to being filmed so it made me feel a lot better.

Anyway, I had lots of fun trying on these peices-it'll be sad to say goodbye to them!

xo Jane

Sea of Shoes on the News

On Tuesday night this little short about Sea of Shoes aired on Channel 33! I missed it in real time unfortunately because I don't have a TV but it's online now! But wow, very honored and very excited. 

I am really rockin' the double chin! LOL. Okay. Sorry, I am just so self-conscious about being filmed!   

Thanks to my friend Maury for uploading this-he also did a nice write up which I am going to put up here:

Sea of Shoes' Blog Author, JANE ALDRIDGE [INTERVIEW/FEATURE] 

KDAF 'The 33 News' 

Dallas, TX 

[orig. air date: 4.13.09]

Jane Aldridge [in her first television interview] is calm, composed and at home [literally].

Her CV includes 'Teen Vogue' and 'French Glamour,' and hundreds of blogs, whose readers track her every footstep--Jane is unfazed, but not immune to scrutiny.

This featurette includes shiny 'boot-y' from her closet [recognizable to readers of 'Sea of Shoes'--her industry-watched blog, described here as, 'One of the most popular blogs on the Internet']. 

Jane Bites:

Most hits in a day? [61,000].

Kanye West 'Boot-y call'?

[Yes, but not what you're thinking. Rapper, turned fashion maven and SOS fan was all 'bout business.]

Got shoes? Affirmative! 

Exotic, avant-garde; always chic; impossible to find this side of Paris [France, not Texas], Jane's shoes artfully parked in their own showroom--her bedroom closet, await her selection du jour for, either exercise, or their big break--a photo layout in 'SOS,' where one imagines serious late night multilingual bitch-sessions on who has more hits [CDG or AD]? And who's a played-out pump from the early '07s?

[As a reader of 'SOS' (she also posts very occasionally to my blog), I have witnessed grown women, teenage girls, and not a few men comment her posts, combining bliss, agony, deep-green envy, and obeisant supplication, with the rare Jerry Springer-reject thrown in for kicks.] 

Jane, with insight beyond her years, and an easy Texas laugh appropriate to them [due in part to her mother, Judy Aldridge, former Japan-based fashion model, current designer and vintage retailer at 'Atlantis Vintage' http://atlantishome.typepad.com], credits Mom for inspiration and an early initiation by Kabuki [a time-capsule from Judy, stored in her attic, and labeled, 'for Jane'].

This three-minute clip [accompanied by awful techno], conceived as an 'human interest peek into Jane's closet,' finds Jane flipping absurdity into Zen pancakes.

Cocksure, not cocky, Jane [with a twinkle] begins, 'If I were a shoe...,' selecting a chic '09 Alaïa 'Maryjane on Steroids' and anthropomorphizing it with only a modicum of detectable bullshit into that which would normally define superfluity, but which here transforms a teenage puff-piece, tabled in Dallas, into a real fashion remote from Trophy Club, where suburban student Jane turns into 'Shoesea' Superhero-- "Shoenami J"!

Most 17-year-old young women would have Tweet'd, Facebook'd and Myspace'd this item faster than you can say Demeulemeester. Ms. Aldridge was kind enough to extend me the favor. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank her for her permission to vicariously participate, witness and begin a viral phenomenon.

It's been a learning experience to clock a Ferrari's 'Zero to Sixty' Hits-Per-Hour next to my Hybrid, and I'm humbled.

p.s. While cynical observers doubt this wunderkinds' credibility; it seems that her age is proving just one of her assets in the quixotic, constant flux of the world which she chronicles and inhabits; however, that which fuels the her current flame, will only see her passion prove its limit.

~Nichopoulooza
~mrjyn

Thanks again Maury. 

I hear this short might make it to CNN? Who knows! I'll update this post if I find out.

and thanks again KDAF!

xox Jane

MARTIN MARGIELA DEGRADE COWBOY BOOTS-warped classics

 

*love the signature Margiela stitch on the back of these boots.*

As I said in my previous post, there was something about this pair of boots that was immediately compelling to me. They spoke to me in a way that NO SHOE has ever spoken to me before.

And when they spoke they said a lot of things to me.

It's a beautiful boot, no doubt-and being born and raised in Texas, I've always had a thing for cowboy boots. These boots have a dash of Texas trash to them, with a heap of surrealismo lumped in. They are the prototypical warped classic.

Yes...a warped classic...kind of like these things.

The first thing that popped into my mind were some of my favorite David Lynch movies; blue roses (Twin Peaks: Fire, Walk With Me), blue nails (Wild at Heart), blue eyeshadow (Blue Velvet),  blue curtains, , blue hair (Mullholand Drive), blue skies (most Lynch movies, but especially Wild at Heart)...and of course, Blue Velvet. These blue boots could have totally made a cameo in any of those movies. 

Some stills from Blue Velvet.

Yes, these boots have something very surreal about them...in fact they wouldn't look so out of place in a Magritte...the suit the color scheme of Fair Captive quite well.

(Okay, I'm done with desecrating Magritte for the rest of my life. I apologize..really.)

I wore them yesterday, to our Easter dinner. My sister made a bunny cake. It was a delicious feast, you should go see it on my mom's blog. Here are some really lame pictures of my outfit!

Wearing a vintage fur and thrifted dress. 

My friend Ronnie (he's in a super cool band called Vega) is playing with Crystal Castles at the Granada Theater tomorrow so I have to come up with something fun to wear! Probably with the Margiela cowboy boots.

TTYL, xox Jane